#22- A tax preparation company automatically adds the

[mokkyukkyu]

Hi,

I was not sure between A and E...
What makes E wrong?
I thought this kind supports the conclusion.
The disclaimer serves no purpose...if they knew hot to evade penalties and if they actually try to do that.
But does this mean it may be a strengther, but not assumption?


As far as the argument...
I thought the structure is
Premise:
A (the purpose of the disclaimer)→B (legal protection)
C (suggest clients do smt illegal)→no B (then this lead to no A)
Conclusion:
No A

...so the argument is pretty solid, I thought.
Why is A correct? If anything, I think the argument does not need assumptions

[Adam Tyson]

In this Justify the Conclusion question, we need an answer that will prove that the disclaimer serves no purpose (because "the disclaimer serves no purpose" is the conclusion here). We know that the only purpose it could serve is to provide legal protection (the stimulus said so), and we know that it does not serve that purpose if they actually advise their clients to do something illegal (they get no legal protection from the disclaimer in that case). So, in order to prove that the disclaimer serves no purpose at all, we need to know that it also serves no purpose (offers no legal protection) even when they do NOT suggest their clients do something illegal.

Answer A fills in that gap for us. If they have no need for legal protection when they do not suggest something illegal, then the disclaimer is never going to be of any use. Either you need protection and don't get any, because you suggested doing something illegal, or else you made no such suggestion and therefore have no need of that protection. In either case, the disclaimer serves no purpose.

Answer E is irrelevant - this argument has nothing to do with what clients would or would not do. The only issue is whether or not the disclaimer provides some legal protection. I don't think E even strengthens the argument, because the actions of the clients simply are not at issue.

[lsatgirl2017]

Hi Powerscore tutors!

I just wanted to check my reasoning regarding this question. I originally ruled out A because I prephrased
NOT construed as advocating... NOT email elsewhere suggests..

because it connected two ideas from the premises and its contrapositive would mean email elsewhere suggest NOT legal protection, which then led to NOT legal protection NOT purpose

I dismissed A because of the necessary condition, but giving it a second look now, I realized the assumption is exactly the same as the last premise, with the sufficient condition negated - this is something I hadn't expected or really seen in CR-heavy questions. How do you advice dealing with situations like this in the future?

Thank you in advance!

[Francis O'Rourke]

If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying that since the disclaimer states that 'any advice should not be construed as a violation of the tax code,' then the email does not contain any actual violations of the tax code. Is this correct?

If this is the case, then I would suggest that you reconsider the point of disclaimers. I would not assume that all the advice is legal, merely because a disclaimer tells you not to interpret the advice as illegal. The LSAT assumes that some people do commit crimes and some people do try to get out of crimes, so we can't take the disclaimer as being an accurate, objective representation of the legality of the advice.

[stephodigie]

Could you explain why B is wrong? I was debating between A and B but chose B.

[Adam Tyson]

Thanks for the question, stephodigie! Answer B tells us something that we already know from the stimulus - if the email says to do something illegal, then penalties will follow. In other words, no legal protection, they are still on the hook and in trouble. What we need in order to justify the conclusion that there is no legal protection afforded by the disclaimed is that even when you DON'T suggest doing something illegal, you get no protection. We've covered the situations where you DO say to do something illegal, and now we need to cover all the rest of the possible scenarios.

That's where answer A comes in. If you don't say to do something illegal, that covers all the other scenarios imaginable (because "you do" and "you do not" are logical opposites and leave no third alternative unaccounted for). If in all those scenarios you need no protection, then the disclaimer provides none because there is nothing to be protected from.

In short, A justifies the conclusion because every imaginable situation is dealt with. B does not because it does not tell us what happens when you do not say to do something illegal, leaving open the possibility that you might get some protection from the disclaimer in those cases.

I hope that helps clear it up for you, and welcome to our forum!

[coralconsulting77]

I want to take a crack at this one.

The premises:

Premise: Discuss a tax prep review and a special "disclaimer" which indicates that any tax advice should not be seen as providing illegal advice

Premise 1: The only purpose this disclaimer could serve is to provide legal protection.

Premise 2: If the email elsewhere suggests that the client do something illegal, then the disclaimer offers no legal protection

Conclusion: So the disclaimer serves no purpose.

Assumption: There is no other legal benefit conferred through the disclaimer, and, as the author concludes the benefit that COULD be conferred is pointless for two reasons 1) why would you need legal protection if you do not do anything illegal? and B) if one provides illegal advice the disclaimer is moot.

If I look at it from a conditional logic point of view:

If Legal protection-->disclaimer
If no disclaimer-->no legal protection

suggest something illegal-->Disclaimer (not benefit)
If Disclaimer (benefit)--->not suggest something illegal

Taken together: (If Legal protection-->Disclaimer (benefit)-->not suggest something illegal

Assumption If you one does not do anything illegal, then why would they need legal protection (if not suggest something illegal-->no purpose)

conclusion: no purpose

Is this conditional logic chain right?

[Adam Tyson]

Hey there coralconsulting77, I think you have tried to force a conditional framework onto at least one relationship that is not conditional, and in so doing you have made this more complex than it needs to be. I see no conditional relationship between "legal protection" and "disclaimer" in this stimulus. They are not saying "if there is legal protection, then there is a disclaimer" or "if you need legal protection, you must have a disclaimer." When the author says that the only purpose the disclaimer could serve is to provide legal protection, they are saying "if the disclaimer has a purpose, then it must provide legal protection." Let's diagram that as:

Disclaimer has Purpose Legal Protection

(Assuming that you are using "benefit" to mean the same as "purpose" here, It also looks like you may have gotten the protection/benefit relationship reversed - protection does not prove benefit, but the benefit proves protection. Legal protection is "the only" purpose, so that protection is the necessary condition, not the sufficient condition.)

The author tells us that the disclaimer provides no protection if the email says to do something illegal. That gives us this chain:

Something Illegal Legal Protection Disclaimer has Purpose

And then the author concludes that the disclaimer has no purpose. The problem is that the argument fails to consider all situations other than when something illegal is suggested in the email. So, to justify that the disclaimer has no purpose, we need to know that in every other circumstance it also provides no protection:

Something illegal Legal Protection Disclaimer has Purpose

That would perfect the argument, proving that there is no situation in which the disclaimer could serve any purpose!

I hope that clarifies things for you. Look into the phrase "the only" and beware of the challenges it poses. The necessary condition is not the thing directly next to that phrase in the sentence! Instead, the sufficient condition gets between that indicator and the necessary condition. Ask yourself "what is the only way?" or "who is the only one?" or "which is the only option?" The answer to that question is the necessary condition in the relationship.

"The only way to get to Carnegie Hall is to practice!"

What is the only way? Practice.

Carnegie Hall Practice

Keep at it!

[ynwasif]

I was hoping to get a little bit more insight as to why A is the correct answer to this question. I spent a lot of time on this question and even came back to it at the end of the section because I had time. I really wanted to choose A and had it narrowed down to E.

Initially I kept A as a contender, but I thought that it was too extreme by stating 'the company does not need legal protection' I assumed this to mean that the company would never need legal protection. When I got to E, my gut kept saying A but because the language was less extreme in E I went with E. I understand why E is wrong, but I am trying to get a better grasp of why the language isn't too extreme in A.

Here was my reasoning:
The conclusion states that the only purpose of the disclaimer is to provide legal protection, but it does not state that legal protection is only needed for instances where the company doesn't have the disclaimer/when there is illegal information in the email. Thus, when I examined A I interpreted it to say 'If the email does not suggest the client do anything illegal, then the company does not need legal protection' *ever* Why could it not be assumed that the company might need legal protection elsewhere?

Edit: I feel like if the wording had said that it *would not* need legal protection it would have been more accurate than saying it *does not* as I assumed does not to be an absolute

[Adam Tyson]

It looks to me like you are approaching this one a little backwards, ynwasif. Your analysis suggests that you are questioning the truth of answer choice A, but we aren't supposed to do that in this case because the question stem says "if which of the following is assumed". In other words, you are supposed to treat each answer choice as if it is absolutely true! Don't question the truth of the answer, but just ask yourself what impact it would have IF it was true! That's the way weaken, strengthen, resolve the paradox, and justify the conclusion answers all work - we take them at face value, no matter how odd they may seem, and see what impact they have. Here's an example:

I am the tallest man in North America

How might I justify that answer? How about with this extreme answer choice:

I am the only man in North America

Now, that's obviously ridiculous, but so what? That's not the issue here. Instead, ask yourself "what if Adam is the only man in North America? What does that do to his claim that he is the tallest man in North America?" Well, it proves it, doesn't it? It also proves that I am the shortest man, the fattest man, the skinniest man, the smartest man, and the dumbest man in North America, right?

Don't question the answer! Instead, focus on the impact that answer has on the conclusion. Extreme language is welcome in these cases! Sometimes, the stronger language is what makes one answer better than another. It wouldn't prove my claim if I said I was ONE of the only men in North America, would it?

When the stem says to assume the answers, or to treat them as true, then treat them as true and don't doubt them, even if they seem ridiculous. That's part of the path to success on these question types. Give it another look and see if that makes more sense to you now!